The Romance of the Secret Service Fund | Page 2

proceeded. "You haven't a notion who it was, so I will not bother you any further in that direction. I have to look for a cool and clever scoundrel, and one, moreover, who is a consummate actor."
"Cool enough," Mazaroff said drily, "seeing that the fellow actually had the impudence to pass himself off on my landlady as myself, and borrow my hat and Inverness-the ones I am wearing now-and cool enough to return them."
All this Mazaroff's landlady subsequently confirmed. She had known, of course, that her lodger had gone to Liverpool on business, and she had been surprised to see him return. The alter ego had muttered something about being suddenly recalled; he had taken off a frock coat and tall hat similar to those Mazaroff had used to travel in, and he had gone out immediately with the older and more familar garments.
"You had no suspicions?" Moore. asked. The landlady was fat, but by no means scant of breath. It was the misfortune of a lady who had fallen from high social status that she was compelled to inhabit a house of considerable gloom. Furthermore, her eyes were not the limpid orbs into which many lovers had once looked languishingly. Was a body to blame when slippery rascals were about?
"Nobody is blaming a body," Newton Moore smiled. "I don��t think we need trouble you any more, Mrs. Jarrett."
Mrs. Jarrett departed with an avowed resolution to "have the law" of somebody or other over this business, and a blissful silence followed. Mazaroff had stripped off his hat and coat.
"You must have been carefully watched yesterday," Moore observed. "I suppose this is the hat and cloak your double borrowed?"
Mazaroff nodded, and Moore proceeded to examine the cloak. It was just possible that the thief might have left some clue, however small. Moore turned out the pockets.
"I am certain you will find nothing there," said Mazaroff. "There is a hole in both pockets, and I am careful to carry nothing in them."
"Nothing small, I suppose you mean," Moore replied as he brought to light some dingy looking papers folded like a brief. He threw the bundle on the table, and Mazaroff proceeded to examine it languidly. A puzzled look came over his face,
"These are not mine," he declared. "I never saw them before."
There were some score or more sheets fastened together with a brass stud. The sheets were typed, the letterpress was in the form of a dialogue. In fact the whole formed a play-part from some comedy or drama.
"This is a most important. discovery," Moore observed. "Our friend must have been studying this on his way along and forgot it finally. We know now what I have suspected all along-that the man who impersonated you was by profession an actor. That is something gained."
Mazaroff caught a little of his companion's excitement.
"You can go farther," he cried. "You can find who this belongs to."
"Precisely what I am going to do," said Moore. "It is a fair inference that our man is playing in a new comedy or is taking the part of somebody else at short notice, or he could not have been learning this up in the cab. I have a friend who is an inveterate theatre-goer, a man who has a pecuniary interest in a number of playhouses, and I am in hopes that he may be able to locate this part for me. I'll see him at once."
Moore drove away without further delay to Ebury Street, where dwelt the Honourable Jimmy Manningtree, an old young man with a strong taste for the drama, and a good notion of getting value for the money he was fond of investing therein. He was an apple-faced individual with a keen eye and a marvellous memory for everything connected with the stage.
"Bet you I'll fit that dialogue to the play like a shot," he said when Moore had explained his errand. "Have some breakfast?"
Moore declined. Until he had identified his man, food was a physical impossibility. Hungry as he was he felt that the first mouthful would choke him. He took up a cigarette and lay back in a chair whilst Manningtree pondered over the type-written sheets before him.
"Told you I'd name the lady," he cried presently. "I don't propose to identify and give the precise name of the character, because you'll be able to do that for yourself by following the play carefully."
"But what is the name of the play?" Moore asked impatiently.
"It is called 'Noughts and Crosses,' one of the most popular comedies we have ever run at the Thespian. If you weren't so buried in your stories and your medicine mysteries at the War Office, you might have seen all about it in last Monday's papers. Go and see the show-I'll give you a box."
"Then the play was produced for